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The first time, I tell myself it’s because I can’t do that to her again. I can’t hear her voice and weaken. I can’t tell her I’m leaving and then let myself stay because she sounds tired or angry or soft in exactly the right place. I have already disappointed her enough. Better, I think, to let her hate me cleanly.

The second time, that excuse sounds thinner. I still don’t answer. I stand there with one hand braced on the counter, staring at her name until the screen goes dark, and I hate myself with enough clarity that it should probably count as growth.

By six thirty I’m in the car.

The airport is far enough away to make the drive feel like commitment. That was part of the appeal when I booked the flight. Distance measured in highways and time zones feels more legitimate than distance measured in silence.

The city is still waking up around me. Morning light gathering in slow gray sheets over the road. I drive with the radio off and my phone face down in the cup holder because I know myself well enough to know that one more look at her name might be enough to send me back before I’ve even crossed the bridge.

I’m halfway to the airport when my phone buzzes again.

Not a call this time. A message.

I tell myself not to look.

Then I look.

It isn’t Maggie. It’s Petra.

For one bizarre second I think I must be hallucinating from lack of sleep, because Petra and I do not text. Petra speaks in hallways and appears in doorways and conveys disapproval like a private art form. She doesn’t send messages.

I tap it open anyway.

Mr. Chandler has terminated the arrangement. Effective immediately. Thought you should know before you leave under false assumptions.

That’s it.

No greeting. No explanation. Just a surgical little cut across the road I thought I was on.

For a second, everything in me goes still. Then my heart starts pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.

Canceled.

He canceled it.

Not suspended. Not delayed. Not “under review.” Canceled.

I read the message again, then once more, as if the words might rearrange themselves into something less impossible.

They don’t.

A car behind me honks because I’ve eased off the accelerator without meaning to. I blink, grip the wheel, and barely make the next turn. I take the next exit abruptly, cut across an almost-empty side road, and pull into a gas station hard enough that the tires protest. I put the car in park and stare at the dashboard.

My hands are shaking.

Not from fear. From the violent, disorienting rush of hope.

I should call Petra. Confirm it. Ask what changed. Ask why.

I don’t.

Because if I stop to think too long, I’ll start doubting the one thing my body already understands: I’m not going to the airport.

I’m going to her.

I spin the car around so fast it feels adolescent.

For the first time in two weeks, I stop pretending there is nobility in leaving before I’ve actually fought for anything. I stop calling fear restraint. I stop telling myself that making the decision alone somehow makes it cleaner.